print;
broadside
- Museum number
- 1880,0710.388
- Title
- Object: Zauberey
- Description
-
A broadside on the various aspects of witchcraft; with an etching by Matthaeus Merian the Elder from a drawing by Michael Herr, depicting different scenes involving witches and demons, with Latin text by Johann Ludwig Gottfried, and German verses in letterpress. 1626
Etching
- Production date
- 1626
- Dimensions
-
Height: 198 millimetres (engraving)
-
Height: 282 millimetres (printed area)
-
Width: 318 millimetres (engraving)
-
Width: 325 millimetres (printed area)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The engraving provides a compendium of popular beliefs about witchcraft current at least since the late fifteenth century. To the left of the central witches' brew, in the background a dance is proceeding on the Brocken mountain (also known as Blocksberg), with men and women flying in, riding goats and pitchforks; in the foreground women are drinking and making love to devils. To the right, in the background a necromancer is summoning demons from the doubtful safety of a magic circle; in the foreground women are consulting magic books for a ceremony to include dead babies. The Latin verses by Johann Ludwig Gottfried (ca.1584-1633) and the anonymous German ones simply describe the scene and reinforce the prejudice which led to so many judicial murders of those accused of witchcraft. (David Paisey)
A preparatory study by Michael Herr related to an early stage of this composition, with the central cauldron spewing out toads surrounded by various seated figures and monsters with flying figures above, in pen and black ink with grey wash, is in the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA (inv.no. 1871.28; see W.Breazeale et al, 'A pioneering collection: Old Master Drawings from the Crocker Art Museum', exhibition catalogue, Sacramento, 2010, p. 134).
Lit.: Wolgang Harms (ed.), Illustrierte Flugblätter aus den Jahrhunderten der Reformation und der Glaubenskämpfe, Coburg (exh.cat) 1983, no.151
See D. Petherbridge, 'Witches and Wicked Bodies'. Exhibition catalogue Edinburgh 2013, cat No. 36
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2002 London, BM, German Illustrated Broadsides of Four Centuries
2013 Aug-Nov, Edinburgh, Scottish NG, Witches and Wicked Bodies
2014-15 Sept - Jan, London, BM, Witches and Wicked Bodies
- Acquisition date
- 1880
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1880,0710.388
